Tea Party Tea Bag Invitation

In December 2007, Esme and I planned her 4th birthday at Alice's Tea Cup on the Upper West Side. It's a wonderful little tea room that she loves. It was her plus just a few girlfriends. I was trying to come up with invitations "tea related" and was stumped. Then I came up with this idea to make the invitation into a tea bag itself. I took apart a real tea bag to figure out how to fold it, then took vellum and duplicated the folds. The invitation I just printed on regular paper and then slipped it inside so that the wording showed through the vellum. Then it was stapled. The tea bag...tag? what is that thing called--the paper thingy that hangs from the string? i made that out of cardboard and glued fabric to it. I have to admit, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I wish the picture was more clear, I definitely have to become better at digital photography (or get a new camera because ours stinks).

The tea bag invitation sits on shelf with a silver tea set my mother-in-law gave us. As you can see from the photo, it's not silver anymore. I took it to the auto paint place up the block from the architecture firm I work for and asked one of the guys to spray paint the set glossy black. His English is almost non-existant and he stared at me just blinking. I'm assuming he thought he didn't hear me correctly. I don't speak Spanish, but I said "Negro" and motioned as if doing a charade for "all over the this." I had to repeat myself a bunch of times and finally said. "I know it sounds crazy. Loco." He smiled and took the set from me and told me to come back the next day. I love the way it turned out. My mother -in-law will DIE if she finds out. I'm just not going to tell her.